Shameless plugging aside, I really do love the way you can look into the eyes of anything and see life and emotion. We can compose images with elaborate storytelling, but the eyes tell a story all their own and that is what makes them so magical.

In this image, of Mr. Froggy, the textures and patterns in his eyes were so mesmerizing, I could not help but get lost in looking at them. The glitter of the color near metallic like a nail polish and the cracks of the black like a distressed sidewalk made this eye quite unique like a finger print.

I guess that is the true beauty of the eye. Not all are the same and not all are so simple to read.

Something has changed within me
Something is not the same
I’m through with playing by the rules
Of someone else’s game
Too late for second-guessing
Too late to go back to sleep
It’s time to trust my instincts
Close my eyes and leap!

I’m through accepting limits
’cause someone says they’re so
Some things I cannot change
But till I try, I’ll never know!
Too long I’ve been afraid of
Losing love I guess I’ve lost
Well, if that’s love
It comes at much too high a cost!
I’d sooner buy
Defying gravity
Kiss me goodbye
I’m defying gravity
And you can’t pull me down

Elphaba Thropp – Wicked, the musical

One of my all time favorite musicals, right up there with Cats, Phantom of the Opera and Les Miserables, is Wicked (I think Wicked is at the top though). I have actually had Defying Gravity repeating over and over again in my head since Saturday morning when I got up. Isn’t it interesting how a song you haven’t thought about much in the present moment sneaks back in somehow?

Anyway, when I found out that the #SSP theme was going to be Fast and Furious , I decided, with the limited amount of time I had before the doors of the event opened, that I would use the song to my advantage and create my own machination of the Wicked and misunderstood Elphaba.

The fast and furious part came down to the shoot and process, which was completed in under 45 minute heh.

I have watched a few of Lindsay Adler’s KelbyOne videos on shooting people of all different shapes and sizes – you know, regular people (all of us)! One thing I loved about it was the psychology behind it. Ask people what they really dislike and then use your knowledge and experience to get flattering portraits.

Now, I am a hippy girl, and I do not mean in the granola sense (though, I love me some granola). I have “birthing hips” and I used to be so ashamed of being short with wide hips. Actually, as I have aged over the last 10-11 years, I realize that this helps to make me look curvy in a good way if shot in a flattering angle.

With the aid of a few birthday presents (fancy dress, shrug, and shoes) and my iPhone, I took some of the advice Lindsay spoke about in regards to ladies with curves and pulled off this flattering portrait.

As part of my goals for the year of working with the phone like a camera, I edited and cleaned it up with only the trusty apps at my disposal.

“We must be willing to get rid of the life we’ve planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us. The old skin has to be shed before the new one can come. “ ― Joseph Campbell

So, today I decided to infuse some life back into a very old blog of mine, which I started back in 2010 to work through my own thoughts about the real world around me. It was aptly titled, I.R.L. because I was writing about my really, real day-to-day life and thoughts.

Honestly, it was a great release for hardships, struggles, and achievements of my own making. Today, some of it was almost humorous to look back at too. Like, a million years had passed since I thought I felt certain things and they were really just a couple of years old.

I got a chance to relive things like my big move, being diagnosed with vertigo, my boyfriend moving to Florida from Oklahoma, car accidents, and a general time before I was so plugged in to social media in general.

First thing I had to do was update the entire theme to fit the way I feel now and match my style, so after hours of clean up and design, I wrote my first posting since December 07, 2011 and it felt nice.

I plan to continue to use this blog as a place I can share the things going on in my life and I welcome everyone to follow along if you want to know more about the Qwerky Girl behind the glass, sans make-up, and living in real life!

Since this series was fresh in my head, I decided to put together a BTS/Tut on the make-up behind it. So, here it goes:

1: The Start – The first thing is go into this with a clean and moisturized palette (aka face). I applied a cap since the wig was coming later and I wanted to keep my hair out of all the make-up that was about to go one.

2: Primer – I find it highly important to prime my face before doing make-up, but especially for photos because of the lighting and setting of the make-up. You don’t want to fill in and clone out pores if you don’t have to, so when I prime, I use a pore refiner and a shine minimizer under my beauty balm.

3: Blocking and Concealing – The next step is two-fold. First I did a mediocre job blocking my brows because I didn’t need them fully gone (because of all the black liner for the comic lines), but I did want them held down so they were easier to draw over. While I was blocking, I figured I would ally concealer and a BB that was 1-2 shades lighter to my face.

4: Setting the Base: If not one of the most important things to do when you finish the base is to set it with powder. Setting any “wet” make-up helps it last longer and keeps the shininess to a minimum. When you are under lights and moving around with the selfy, you want that make-up to stay as fresh looking as long as possible; otherwise, you spend more time in PS trying to fix hot spots and melty make-up, which is just time consuming and yucky!

5: Whose Line Is It Anyway? – Okay, the lines which started as outlines and then filled in with a combo of black liquid liner and black loose shadow and brow filler was the most time consuming part of all this. I decided to reference Lichtenstein’s crying girl piece right on my phone and mimicked many of the same lines, but added a few added contour lines to keep the feel intact since I am three-dimensional and the print was not. This was roughly an hour of application time since I wanted to draw on both eyes and sides of the face.

6: Adding Some Color Pop – After all the lines, this was quite possibly the easiest part, adding the color. I used a really bright Urban Decay matte purple shadow (the name escapes me at the moment) for the eyes, 3 different blue shadows for the tears, and a really intense red lip tar to make those pop as well. I went back through with a white liquid eye liner to create the fake highlights in the tears and the lip. Then I set the lips with a shine gloss.

7: Dots, Dots, and More Dots – Finally! I used a red hair and brow powder with a round tip brush and twisted the little red dots all over my face and neck. While tedious, this was not that difficult. It took me approximately 15 minutes to do.

8: The Final Product – With the addition of the red, s-curl wig, I was ready for my close up!

I hope you enjoyed this behind the scenes look at probably one of the most ambitious make-ups I have attempted EVER!

Stay tuned for more things to come in the way of my recreations and conceptual imagery! ♥

+Pete Collins was awesome enough to give my Welcome to Sin City image created in my Pop Art/ Comic Fusion series the Editor’s Choice recognition this week over at NAPP/Kelby Training (now known as KelbyOne)!

Talk about an awesome birthday gift! =D

This is what he said:

“Shantha Marie Fountain gives us a slightly retouched self-portrait. 😀 “Welcome to Sin City” is a fun graphic twist to a normal selfie. I always love to see folks experimenting with self-portraits because it shows a boldness and a willingness to learn and grow. Shantha used the influence of Sin City for her process, and I love the half-tone effect and the pop art feel. It is “spot” on… (OK, I will personally beat myself up for that one… sorry!) Keep up the great work!”

Thanks so much for this, Peter! It really made my day to be grouped up with 4 other awesomesauce artists!

For anyone curious about the rest of the awardees, you can check it out by clicking on this link:

First and foremost, I want to thank everyone who wished me all the good vibes and birthday wishes. You guys always amaze me with all the caring and support. To give you a bit of an update on how that went, well….

It was an amazing day!

First, I slept in to a whole whopping 6:30 AM! Impressive, I know. Then, I got up and finished a few final projects for school because they thought it would be awesomesauce to make finals week the week of my birthday….Bastards!

Anywho, after that, I turned my brown and blonde ombre hair into that of brown and “holy hell your head is on fire” red!

From there, I went out to do a bit of personal pampering and shopping and visited the boyfriend up at work so that I could show of my new purchases and be surprised with a few gifts from there as well.

Later that evening, after I got all fancified with my new purchases, we went to this cool little hibachi place and had some of the best seafood I have ever tasted, then there was the whole sexy ab fest while we watched the 300: Rise of an Empire movie, and finally we finished of the evening at WOB, where I met Hayley, the most awesomesauce chicky server ever and had a blast chatting and Instagram’ing until it was time to end the evening.

One of the coolest parts of my day was meeting a lovely lady named Stidy at one store and found out she was interested in learning about photography and we exchanged numbers so I could help her out with any questions she may have, and of course, Hayley, who was just (as +Isabelle Fortin would say)Freaktastic !

Honestly, this year has been wonderful so far, even with a few hectic bumps and bruises, so I was almost worried that the double 3’s might end up sucking, but to the contrary, it was awesomesauce and amazeballs!

So, in a way to say thank you to everyone here for aiding in the awesomeness, and to pay tribute to my fantastic birthday (the ushering in of Spring YAY!) – Here is a little bit of me to give back to you!

If the wind were like 40+ lbs. of raw puppy excitement willing to plow you over for loves and kisses!

This is my second shot for the +Get Critiqued! March Theme of Speed. It was a whole lot of fun to try to do something I am really not great at and that is thinking in terms of motion. +Christina Lawrie sure does know how to apply the pressure to a fashion and conceptual portraiture girl like me!

In this shot, I went with my trusty gal pal Tenshi to not disappoint in the action department, and she really didn’t! I loved this one because of her expression and the lights and shadows on her physique!

During one of the sessions I ran, I got a lot of great feedback and used it to make some edits!